Vacuum currents for a scalar field in models with compact dimensions

Abstract: This paper reviews the investigations on the vacuum expectation value of the current density for a charged scalar field in spacetimes with toroidally compactified spatial dimensions. As background geometries locally Minkowskian (LM), locally de Sitter (LdS) and locally anti-de Sitter (LAdS) spacetimes are considered. Along compact dimensions quasiperiodicity conditions are imposed on the field operator and the presence of a constant gauge field is assumed. The vacuum current has non-zero components only along compact dimensions. Those components are periodic functions of the magnetic flux enclosed by compact dimensions with the period equal to the flux quantum. For LdS and LAdS geometries and for small values of the length of a compact dimension, compared with the curvature radius, the leading term in the expansion of the the vacuum current along that dimension coincides with that for LM bulk. In this limit the dominant contribution to the mode sum for the current density comes from the vacuum fluctuations with wavelength smaller than the curvature radius and the influence of the gravitational field is weak. The effects of the gravitational field are essential for lengths of compact dimensions larger than the curvature radius. In particular, instead of the exponential suppression of the current density in LM bulk one can have power law decay in LdS and LAdS spacetimes.